Pirates
by x DaMsEl in a DrEsS x
Summary: It was such a little word. Such a tiny word. Yet it managed to slay me. Buttercup's tumultous rollercoaster of emotion as her parents inform her of Westley's death at the hand of the Dread Pirate Roberts. Based on the scene in Goldman's novel.


**Title:** Pirates

**Authors:** Holly Dane

**Rating:** PG-13

**Summary:** Buttercup's whirlwind of pain and anguish after she discovers that her Westley has been murdered by the Dread Pirate Roberts. Based on the scene from Goldman's book where Buttercup's parents tell her of Westley's supposed death.

**Disclaimer:** I have used dialog from William Goldman's brilliant novel _The Princess Bride_ in this piece of fiction, so I give all dialog credit to him. Other than that, it's all me.

-- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"Pirates."

It's such a little word...such a small, insignificant word. There isn't really much to it, is there? Just two tiny syllables. Two measly, little syllables. But yet they took everything away from me. They took every last bit of hope, light, love, and peace from my heart. Those two syllables, despite their insignificance, came together to create a black hole. A black hole that, without hesitation or remorse, sucked the very breath from my lungs.

When I heard the vile word escape the parted lips of my father, I knew that I should sit down. Even before I had the courage to speak, I knew what had happened. I knew that my one and only Westley had been captured by **_them_**. As I lowered myself shakily into the wooden chair in our kitchen, I felt my eyes well up with tears. They stung like saltwater poured into an open wound, so I tried to hold them in. But it was difficult.

"He's been taken prisoner then?" I could hear my own shaky voice pose the mind-numbing question. In all of my days, I never thought I would have to ask such a painful question. As I waited for my parents to respond, I felt my knees buckle, as if they had been placed under the pressure of a thousand elephants. And it wasn't the same type of buckling my knees had experienced when Westley kissed me for the first...and possibly last time. It was something entirely different, something like agony. As I sat in complete silence, every microsecond seemed to pass by me as if it were an eternity, until finally, my mother shook her head and mouthed the two letter word that shattered my heart into a million pieces.

"No."

The second I was able to process what she had just said, I wanted to scream. I wanted to kick and flail and sob. I wanted to stand up and rip the autumn hair from my head. I wanted to break every item in my own home. I wanted to drop to my knees in misery.But I couldn't move...I was frozen. Frozen in time? Frozen in anguish? Frozen in shock? I didn't know. All I knew was that I couldn't move...couldn't think...couldn't breath.

He wasn't captured. Well if he wasn't captured, then what was he? I knew. I knew what he was. He was dead. **_They_** killed him. As my numb mind tried to wrap itself around the concept, my arms and legs turned to jelly. My breath hitched in the hollow of my throat. My hands shook with the fury of a thunderstorm. My eyes flooded with burning tears. My heart dropped into the pit of my stomach, and shattered like glass as it hit the empty bottom. I was frail, broken, incomplete.

"It was Roberts," my father said. "The Dread Pirate Roberts."

Roberts. I knew who Roberts was. Everyone in Florin knew who Roberts was. The terrifying, the brutal, the heartless Dread Pirate Roberts. He was legendary for his cruelty and malice. People said his heart had been replaced by a blackjack. People said he never left captives alive...and he didn't. Oh, I knew who he was. And I knew that he had taken my Westley...ripped him out of my warm embrace and sucked every last breath from his sweet lungs.

"Oh," that was all I could manage to say, "the one who never leaves survivors?" As I spoke, I could feel my bottom lip quivering. I never wanted to say it. I never wanted to have my fears affirmed. I never wanted to acknowledge the fact that my sweetheart had been murdered by the most fearsome, godless man in the world. But I couldn't stop my trembling voice. It just escaped from my mouth without permission. And then, before I knew it, my own father had killed me.

"Yes." There, he had done it. He had killed me with his words. Murdered me. Slaughtered me. He might as well have taken a stake and driven it through my heart. But then again, I didn't have a heart anymore, I had given it to Westley...my Westley. And Roberts had killed him, thereby killing my heart. All that was now left of me was a hollow chest and an empty hole. A hole where I had once kept my heart.

The longer I sat there, the more I began to feel my body shake. The chair beneath me wobbled, as I myself trembled. I felt like a drowned kitten, shivering in the cold. He was dead. My farm boy was dead. He had been murdered by a vicious band of ruffians. Pirates. I hated the word. I wanted to spit on it. I wanted to stomp it into the ground and kick dirt over it. I wanted to shatter it, just as it had shattered me. As my mind did summersaults, my strained eyes dared a glance in my parent's direction, and all I saw was pity.

Under the demeaning glare of their eyes, I broke. I snapped. I lost my mind. I couldn't sit there with them. I couldn't have there sympathetic stares looming over me like the cloud of black death. Wasn't it already enough that I was suffocating in the fumes of misery? How dare they look at me that way. They had no clue what I was going through. After all, they didn't even love each other. Not the way Westley and I did. They didn't understand my deep pain...and they never would. As I looked into their glazed eyes, I snapped.

"Was he stabbed?...Did he drown?...Did they cut his throat asleep?...Did they wake him, do you suppose?...Perhaps they whipped him dead" I was now hysterical, my tongue fumbling over my words. In my mind's eyes, I could just picture the bloody scenarios I was describing to my dumbfounded parents. Every last one of them played out like a horrific nightmare in front of my tear clogged eyes. Wringing my hands together, I felt my head begin to spin. My brain turned to mush as my world ceased to exist. I couldn't handle the pain. I couldn't handle the pity. I couldn't handle the loneliness that filled my empty chest.

"...I'm getting silly, forgive me. As if the way they got him mattered. Excuse me, please." I chocked on the words as I fought the unbearable aching in my heart. Trying desperately to override the raw pain burning throughout my entire body, I stood on shaking legs and did the only thing I could do. I bolted. I ran in blind fury, flying up the stairs to my bedroom as hot, pulsing tears ran from my eyes, stinging my tender cheeks. I didn't look back...not once. I couldn't bare to have my parents stare at me, their eyes filled with unshed tears for their poor, pathetic, lovesick daughter.

When I finally reached the top of the staircase, I flung my bedroom door open and threw myself onto my unmade bed. Burying my head in my pillow, I finally let the wall around my heart crumble to the ground like a cloud of dust. Alone in the darkness of my bedroom, the stronghold that had protected my emotions for so long split down the middle and fell helplessly to my feet. I was broken, and there was no one that could fix me. No one that could even try. It was too late now. **_They_** had killed me. Not physically of course, but emotionally, which was even worse. Because now, I was a shell of a girl. There was no heart inside my chest. There wasn't even a soul anymore. Just emptiness. Bleak, miserable emptiness. Was a life of such void even worth living? I already knew the answer to that question. No. I might as well be dead. It would be better than becoming a walking zombie without love or hope.

'Pirates.' I grimaced.

It was such a little word. Such a tiny word. Yet it managed to slay me. It took all the joy from my once full heart, and drank it down into the hollow of its black throat. It yanked at the strings in my chest until finally, it was able to tear my spirit, my very essence, from my breast. And then, when it finally had the precious, still beating heart in the palm of its black hand, it laughed a cold, dead laugh and flung it to the ground. Kicking dirt over it, those two measly syllables stomped it into oblivion, until finally, the last thumping beat could be heard. Spikes and bludgeons tromped it until it lie bleeding in a pool of crimson misery. That's what **_they_** had done to me. They had taken my life, my love, my very reason for breathing, and kicked it while it was down. Beat it till it had no pulse. And then left it for dead. As my heart laid bleeding at my feet, it ran a river of red, but this time, there was no barrier to stop it from flowing. Just loneliness, emptiness, and misery to replace its hollow cavern.

-- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Well, there you have it. This is actually my very first piece of Princess Bride fan fiction, so I would love to know what you think. I absolutely adore the book and film, so I hope that I did them both justice. Thanks so much for reading.

Holly Dane


End file.
